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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Salon, in Part Two [salon.com], claims that:

The QAnon delusions aren't even original: Fantasies about demon-cannibal conspiracies go back at least 150 years

Not sure if I should be reassured. And "This is the second article in a series. Read the first installment here. [salon.com]"

Those among you who are familiar with the strange realm of UFOlogy may know about William Cooper, one of the most outrageous figures to appear on the UFO lecture circuit in the 1980s and author of the 1991 underground bestseller "Behold a Pale Horse." [bookshop.org] Nobody else at the time could beat the wildness of Cooper's claims, which included the idea that the U.S. military, nefarious extraterrestrial forces and ancient secret societies like the Illuminati had banded together for the express purpose of destroying the United States and God-fearing people everywhere.

As crazy as Cooper could often appear, in almost every lecture I've ever seen he would often pause to say something along these lines: "Don't believe me. Do your own research. Look at my sources and tell me I'm wrong!" He once dedicated an entire hour-long episode of his shortwave radio show, "Hour of the Time," to reviewing the lengthy list of books he had read in order to produce his epic, 43-part series entitled "Mystery Babylon," [iheart.com] an in-depth analysis of how hermetic philosophies had impacted world history. You could disagree with Cooper's eccentric conclusions, but you really had to respect someone with the temerity to broadcast an hour-long bibliography over the radio. Even more surprisingly, his listeners hung on every word.

You know, I always thought that it was kinda funny that you never see an Illuminati drink water, . . . Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος!

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, mainstream UFOlogists with academic backgrounds (researchers like Jacques Vallée and Stanton Friedman) believed that Cooper represented the bottom of the barrel of P.T. Barnum-style hucksterism in the fields of UFOlogy and conspiratology. Neither of them could possibly have predicted what was coming: a 21st century in which QAnon cultists — a word I do not use lightly or flippantly — believe that performing "research" means typing a few names into Google images, seeing QAnon's own posts pop up, and concluding within seconds that QAnon's theories have all been confirmed. Why bother reading Hall's 578-page "Secret Teachings" when you can just glance at a subject header in Reddit and convince yourself you've solved the mysteries of the universe?

Elitist Academic types, probably have a basement to their pizzeria. But it turns out that even David Ickes is not original.

Rick and Gene's wild tales about "underground wars" between "white hats" and "black cats" — discussed in the first installment of this series — appear to have a more recent source: the Lovecraft-inflected 1940s horror stories of Richard Sharpe Shaver. In 1943, at the age of 36, Shaver became infamous among American science fiction fans for a series of allegedly true accounts he began publishing in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. Shaver claimed he had discovered a race of prehistoric extraterrestrials known as the Titans. Most of the Titans had abandoned Earth long ago, but a few remnants of their society had been left behind. There were two types of Titans still living on Earth, although they were hidden deep underground: the angelic Teros ("white hats" who sometimes intervened positively in human affairs) and the demonic Deros ("black hats," whose entire existence revolved around kidnapping, torturing and eating human beings).

Unbeknownst to the fake-news-spewing mainstream media, the Deros often snatch humans from the surface world and drag them down into their underground caverns where they rape, torment and kill their captives in creatively sadistic ways. How did Shaver know about the Deros' existence? Because, he claimed, he had been imprisoned in their subterranean realm for eight years.

Oh-kay. (Starts edging slowly away . . . )
But why Trump supporters? Why Evangelical Christians? Why Second Amendment gunnuts? In a word, why are deplorables so drawn to things like QAnon?

A strange fascination with subterranean beings kidnapping humans, dragging them underground and sexually assaulting them recurs throughout the QAnon theories that have spread across the internet since 2017. Similar obsessions also run throughout Cathy O'Brien's infamous 1995 memoir, "Trance Formation of America," [amzn.to] which, like QAnon's theories, is a fascinating mixture of truth and untruth, information and disinformation, reality and unreality. At one point in "Trance Formation," O'Brien claims she was sexually assaulted by Hillary Clinton in a hotel room. She describes this encounter with such intense attention to detail that one can't help but feel that the true goal of the book is something other than pamphleteering."

Still edging away, . . oh, no, they are following me!
But author asks a friend:

His instinctive conclusion was that Christians felt safe reading O'Brien's lurid tale because they could unconsciously get off on the pornographic details while feeling outraged at the same time. Who else but Christian conservatives could figure out how to merge sexual gratification with judgmental loathing?

I believe the word for this is "titillation". Darn Yahoos (Jonathan Swift) and Morlocks (H.G. Wells), and now the Deros. Just look at the barbaric things they do! Isn't it terrible? So sinful. Let's watch some more, ok?

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